Politician: Five years ago, when we streamlined the screening operations of the Transportation Security Administration to decrease excessive expenditures under the new budget guidelines, critics claimed that the streamlining would have a detrimental effect on the ability of the TSA to detect dangerous airline passengers and cargo, thereby leading to diminished air-travel safety. However, recently-compiled TSA statistics clearly show that the critics’ claims were unfounded. Throughout the years following the implementation of our streamlining procedures, there has been an overall decrease in reports of dangerous passengers and dangerous cargoes that have made it through TSA screening checkpoints and onto airplanes.
The politician’s argument is flawed because it fails to consider the possibility that:
A. not every screening expenditure decreased by the TSA streamlining procedures was excessive
B. budget-driven streamlining of airplane maintenance procedures might also have led to diminished air-travel safety
C. a drop in reported observations of a phenomenon might not indicate a corresponding drop in the actual incidence of that phenomenon
D.decreases in excessive expenditures related to screening operations might have enabled the TSA to hire more employees dedicated to improving air-travel safety
E. decreases in excessive expenditures related to screening operations were not sufficient to meet the requirements of the new budget guidelines